War: The Innocence of a Kid
by Tziput13
Summary: Kuki is weak. She is alone, and she knows she won't make it. But, in spite of all the things that have happened to her, of all the odds that are against her… she is not able to stop herself. One-shot.


_So, just so you know, this story is part of a series, but every fanfiction in the series is not linked with the others, as the only thing they share is the theme. They are based off different fandoms and they do not share the same universe. Thus, you don't need to read the previous stories to understand this one._

 _WARNING: This story contains graphic violence and_ _ **major character death.**_ _  
_

* * *

 _ **WAR**_

 **3**

" _ **The Innocence of a Kid"**_

* * *

She walked. Despite the pain, she continued to walk. Despite _all the pain_ she was feeling in her body _and_ in her inner soul, Kuki persisted stubbornly in walking on the snow cover.

The air was cold. The snow was cold. The wind that was penetrating into her skin and freezing up every cell and blood drop in her body was _cold._ But, despite all of this, Kuki went on and walked.

She just couldn't stop. She knew too well what would have happened if she stopped now. But it was hard not to. _Too hard._ Quickly, Kuki gave a fast glance to her right hand, which was stuck into her chest. It was soaked with red liquid a kid of her age shouldn't have seen in such a quantity. But Kuki merely blinked at the sight and turned her attention back to something supposedly more important: watching where she was going. If that mattered something, given the fact that the snowstorm only let her see three meters ahead or so.

She counted her steps. One. Two. Three. Five. Seven. At the tenth one, she stumbled on a stone that had appeared at the wrong moment. Suddenly, all of the little girl's strength was sucked away from her body, and Kuki abruptly collapsed on the snow. She at least managed to remain on her knees... ending up lying on the ground would have meant never getting up.

Kuki tried her best to stand up, but the pain was literally making her mad now. When she tried for the last time to make her legs function, a loud lament escaped from her lips, but the attempt refused to work, and the sound of her voice was lost in the fog. Kuki gritted her teeth and watched aimlessly the ground, trying to think of a way to resolve her problem.

But _thinking_ was exactly what Kuki shouldn't have done in that moment. Before she could realize it, Kuki remembered.

* * *

 _ **A month before…**_

"But why? You have promised us we could have the day free!" Kuki protested.

"Yeah, Numbuh One! What's going on here anyway? Can't we just leave it for another day?" Wallabee added his two cents, annoyed by the sudden call just as much as Kuki was.

"Guys, I've already told you, I don't know. But it must be something important. Numbuh Three-Sixty-Two has _directly_ called us and she said it was of extreme importance for us to be here."

Nigel's explanation didn't satisfy his teammates much. Kuki and Wallabee threw their arms in the air in exasperation while Abigail said, "I sure hope so, Numbuh One…"

"Hey, look! She's there!" Hoagie said, pointing directly at the stage in front of them, "Maybe now we'll know what's this all about…"

The other four operatives directed their gazes towards the Supreme Leader of the Kids Next Door, as she slowly walked on the wooden boards to reach the microphone. They were in the theatre they normally used to celebrate the entrance of new operatives in the organization, which was almost empty at that moment. To Kuki's eyes, there may have been nine or ten sectors along with hers at most, but she couldn't really be sure about it.

Kuki normally acted as the happiest one in her sector, and today was no exception, even with the annoyance due to sudden summoning by Numbuh Three-Sixty-Two. At least, it had been until Rachel, who had watched the ground for the entire time, finally reached the microphone and raised her head to talk.

Her face was _grim._ It was like she had been overrun by a flood of sadness and lack of confidence, something she had never seen on her. It was… wrong. _And worrying._

"Please, somebody could tell me what the-…?" Wallabee whispered, but Abigail right away slapped him with her red cap in order to shut him up.

"I… I…" Rachel began, but the words died in her throat. She glared at the ground once again and in a strike of anger punched the desk in front of her with an angry cry. The event was so unexpected that in the following seconds there was nothing but an absolute silence in the large chamber.

"I'm… I'm sorry…" she apologized, "but we… we have a problem. It's going to be… the hardest one we've ever had to deal with…"

The Supreme Leader sighed, trying to grab all the courage she could muster before saying, _"The adults have declared war towards each other."_

* * *

 _ **A week before…**_

Kuki tiptoed along the brown sandstone wall until she reached the end of it. She gave a fast glance behind the angle before making a hand sign to her teammate behind her, a sign that meant 'area clear'.

Hoagie nodded and overcame her, a 2x4 weapon in his hands. Their gadgets had been changed in design, and now they were meant to stun adults rather than simply keeping them under control. It was a needed modification: the adults were no more their enemies now, they were enemies of each other. And, ironically, that put the operatives in far more danger than before.

She quietly followed the 2x4 technology officer until he stopped in front of the ruined door of one of the shacks that were visible around them. He slowly opened it: their objective should have been there, along with his family.

Kuki heard battle noises far away. Shots, explosions… another skirmish in the other half of the town.

They _had_ to bring Numbuh One-Fifty and his family away, _pronto._ If the adults, _these adults,_ discovered them, there was no way to know what they would do to them.

She followed Hoagie while he inspected the first room with a torchlight. Their search came to an sudden end when a shadow suddenly appeared in front of them.

"Wait, wait! Don't shoot!" the voice of a boy shouted in fright when Kuki and Hoagie raised their stun rifles, "I'm Numbuh One-Fifty!"

"Shhh!" Hoagie immediately shushed, "We cannot let _them_ find us. Where is your family?"

"They are in the basement. Thank goodness the soldiers haven't searched this house yet…"

"You won't have to worry anymore. We'll deal with it from now on, Numbuh One-Fifty," Kuki said, trying to sound friendly while Numbuh Two activated the portable radio to report the finding.

"I… uh, thank you…" the boy simply said. He was wearing clothes that were ruined from continuous use, spotted by reddish stains and patches that were tell-tale on what he had gone through. Kuki had expected this: they had received his distress call only two days before, and they couldn't know for how much time he had been blocked there before he could call for help.

To be precise, until that single call he had already been labelled as missed in action. Just like many other operatives…

"Okay, Numbuh Three," Hoagie said, stopping the Asian girl's line of thought, "going back from the route we've already used is the best choice according to Numbuh One. Numbuh Four and Five will join us midway."

"Okay…" Kuki answered absently, something that Hoagie did not fail to notice. He placed a hand on her shoulder as he said, "Hey, don't worry. We'll be out of this town in half an hour without a single scratch and with four people saved. Just keep it up for a little more, all right?"

Kuki smiled before replying, "I'll try". Hoagie had learned to be helpful during the previous days, and sometimes he actually substituted her in being the optimistic one in the group. That wasn't surprising at all. They had all changed since the war's outbreak, and event that had taken place only three weeks ago.

Numbuh One-Fifty brought his family to their presence: father, mother, and his older sister. All the three of them had their doubts about being helped by a bunch of children, but the three operatives eventually succeeded in convincing them. There was no time to argue, anyway.

At first, both Kuki and Hoagie took the lead and reopened the door they previously went through. The boy went forward and signalled to Numbuh One-Fifty's family to follow him. Kuki waited for all of them to exit the shack, making sure to have everyone out before closing the creaking door behind herself. She failed to be quiet when at the last moment the thing emitted a loud creak, after which the entire group was sure they had been discovered. But nothing happened. Hoagie limited himself to motion Kuki to be more careful before resuming his lead.

The group walked for five minutes without further incidents. The noises of explosions and shootings were still audible, but they were far. Maybe it wasn't going to go wrong this time, after all. She was sure that Numbuh Four and Five should have been right behind…

"GET DOWN!"

A moment after Hoagie's shout, hell was let loose over Kuki. She immediately dropped herself to the ground while above a sea of projectiles moved around. What was going on? Didn't the adults see they were just kids? Civilians?

The projectiles suddenly stopped their travels over Kuki's head, and the girl watched around, trying to see where were Numbuh Two, One-Fifty or his family. Soon, a hand appeared in front of her.

"C'mon, Numbuh Three, we gotta go before more of them show up," Wallabee announced. Kuki right away accepted his help and grabbed his hand, "What about Numbuh Two, One-Fifty and his family? And the adults that attacked us?"

"Abby is watching over the adult soldiers, they won't wake up for a long time. We still need to find Numbuh Two and the others… have you seen them?"

"No…" she replied. She had lost them during the attack.

"Guys!"

It was Hoagie's voice. Wallabee and Kuki sprinted together at the call of their teammate, who was hidden behind an abandoned van. The spectacle that they found behind the wrecked vehicle left both of them speechless.

Hoagie was standing at a distance from the family, unharmed but completely at loss of words. Because Numbuh One-Fifty had not been so lucky.

Something heavy began moving inside Kuki's stomach. Numbuh One-Fifty's father, mother and sister were all leaning over his body, crying and screaming. He was completely motionless, the only movement consisted in the red liquid splashing out of a multitude of holes visible on his chest. A crimson trail revealed that the incident had happened while they were out of the cover provided by the van. He had been too slow.

That was it. She couldn't bear that sight. Kuki doubled over and emptied her stomach, while Wallabee tried his best to support her.

"…we need to go. Like, _now!"_ Hoagie simply stated.

The adults and the teenager watched the kid like he was a demon of sorts. The first to speak was the man, but unfortunately, he spoke in a language the chubby boy was not able to understand. He gestured towards the corpse and Hoagie nodded, catching on what he meant.

"Wait!"

Kuki ran over to the dead body and scrambled to get her backpack, "I can help! There must be something I can do, I…"

"Kuki…" Hoagie began.

"No! We cannot leave him like that, it's just, wrong!"

"There nothing we can do, Kuki. We have to go, now!" Wallabee tried to reason with her.

But Kuki wasn't listening, "Where are the bandages, I can't find them, there must be-.."

She nearly jumped in surprise when two pairs of hands grabbed her arms. "Let me go!" she shouted, but Hoagie and Wallabee acted like they weren't listening. Kuki tried to kick over and free herself desperately, but it was her against two and, most of all, he currently lacked of the will to rebel.

She persisted in fighting for some seconds before eventually giving up her attempt to escape, her angry cries substituted by whimpers. She suddenly felt weak, and her vision became blurry and dim. The last thing she saw before passing out was Numbuh One-Fifty, while he was carried away by his own father.

* * *

 _ **4 hours before…**_

 _This needed to stop._

But how could they make it stop?

Kuki didn't know. How could they stop this cursed war!? How could they-..

"Kuki? Hey, watch out. You don't want to be taken aback out here..."

Kuki glared at Abigail's face. Her reassuring face had the opposite effect the black girl had hoped for as she gritted her teeth angrily and turned her full attention to the white snow they were walking on. Abigail opened her mouth to speak, but she thought it over and closed it before sighing and turning back to watch Wallabee's back.

They had been walking for so long... or maybe not, but to her it was too much in either case.

What was the meaning of this, anyway? They were just kids. Freaking _kids._ How could kids stop a world-scale war? She didn't care about what Numbuh Three-Sixty-Two or anyone of the other KND operatives had to say about it. All she saw now was that half of the Kids Next Door had been obliterated and the other half was stuck at Moonbase while the world burned under their sight. And they were unable to do anything about it.

She didn't care about the fact they were supposedly going to steal some type of thing that could stop the adults from battling each other, either. To her, this was just a waste of time.

Kuki was furious. She had been in this mood from the moment where she saw Numbuh One-Fifty lifeless body in front of her. Yeah, they could continue and save operatives and families. But what about the other kids in the world? There were too many now that needed their help. They couldn't even save their own operatives, for god's sake!

Her anger slowly turned to sadness and resignation. There was nothing they could do. It was just going to end for them all, sooner or later, and-...

Kuki's thoughts were stopped. A detonation was heard in the surroundings. The explosion's shockwave sent her fifteen meters away in the air before she eventually fell on the ground, and at the same time she felt something hot on her chest. Followed right after by a sharp, sudden strike of pain.

At first the pain was too much, and she screamed it out. But then her instict of survival kicked in along with her training, and she forced herself to stay silent. She remained where she was, lying on the snow and biting the bullet, for a single minute, after which she guessed that they were no more in danger.

She tried to sat up, therefore increasing the pain she was feeling, but she resisted and did not fall down again. She placed one hand on her chest and when she retrieved it, she found it coloured with crimson red. _A splinter._

A hint of nausea went through her body, but she resisted the urge to throw up. She couldn't do that now. She needed to make sure the others were all right before thinking about treating the wound.

Painfully, she slowly stood up, and gazed around her. The fog and the snow were hard to see through, so she simply began wandering around in search of the rest of Sector V.

But after twenty seconds or so, she began feeling worried and abandoned every hesitation left inside her.

"Guys? Guys!" she called, "Nigel? Abby? Hoagie? ...Wally?"

No response.

Where they... no, she had to find them. They were in trouble. She could feel it. She had to find them! But where they...

Kuki stumbled on something.

The girl narrowed her eyes when she tried to keep her equilibrium. The pain was beginning to get unbearable. She really had to med herself, after making sure the others were okay. But what the heck was the thing she had just risked to topple ov-...

Her heart stopped.

Just in front of her, there was a dismembered humand hand. Wrapped around it were the remains of an orange sleeve.

She made a step back.

"No..."

She closed her eyes.

"No!"

It was a nightmare. Nothing more than a nightmare. Any minute she would wake up, and she would forget everything by the end of the day. _It had to._

"...Kuki..."

The reaction was instant. At the call of her name, Kuki turned on her heels and raced for the source of the voice, ignoring the fact she was leaving a red trail behind herself. In less than ten seconds she reached the caller.

"...Abby?"

Abigail Lincoln was there, alright, but her situation was far from being good. One of her legs was literally shredded, and her blue t-shirt was full of splinters... but she was alive.

"Abby! Hold on, I'm here!" Kuki shouted as she literally let herself fall at the injured operative's side. Her focus was fully on her, like he wanted to distract herself from what she had seen half a minute before.

"Kuki, wait..." Abigail whispered, her voice terribly weak, but Kuki didn't listen. She extracted some type of bandages from her backpack, and she would have began wetting them with disinfectant if it wasn't for the dark skinned hand that grabbed her arm.

"There's nothing you can do, Kuki. Not even... not even the best doctor in the world..."

"Abby, you're raving. Just be quiet, and everything is going to be all-..."

"No!" Abigail cried, and Kuki felt her hand tighten its weak grasp, "I'm not going crazy, I'm here, and I'm telling you to stand up and get outta here!"

"But... I won't leave you there! I can't!" Kuki protested, her eyes wet.

"If you won't, they will capture you. Don't you realize it? We have activated some type of stupid mine. The darn thing had to be cloaked, because Numbuh Two's dector did not beep to alert us. It..." she coughed, "they're going to get here and control what happened, Kuki. These guys aren't normal, they aren't going to make a difference between child or adult!"

Her hand moved to grab her sweatshirt, and Abigail pulled Kuki face-to-face with her.

"You can't save me, Kuki. You're too much injured. Go away and hide, that's an order!"

With that, she pushed her away with all her force. But Kuki did not move. She was shocked by her teammate's behaviour... she... she couldn't follow her order.

"You c-can't ask me to do that!" she squeaked, "What a-about the others?"

"The others are either in my or your situation, or are already _dead!_ Right now you have to hide and save your damn life, now!"

Abigail eyes were bloodish red, and Kuki couldn't stand watching her. She heard her cough another time, then she heard her voice again; this time it was calm, but weaker: "Kuki... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all of this. But I won't make it, and you know it. Just go and save yourself..."

But the Asian girl couldn't move. She was blocked in the position at the side of the teammate she couldn't save. _The second one._

Voices were heard coming from the fog, while the snowstorm continued to gain strength. They were in a foreign language, and after that she heard noises of fire, followed by loud laments of...

Hoagie? Hoagie was alive! And maybe even Nigel! She had to save them! She had to..

"Kuki..."

Before she could stand up, the kid was once again fixed by the black skinned girl's glare.

"They captured them. There's nothing you can do in your state, Kuki! You have to run! _now!"_

She coughed up, and blood spilled out of her mouth. It was a terrible sight... but she was right. Kuki would have wanted to scream and cry right now, but her mouth remained shut. If they captured her, it would all have been useless. Abby had asked her. _She had to follow her order._

She looked at her for the last time, and Abigail tried to give her a reassuring smile. Kuki grabbed that single image, memorized it and made it her new energy source: she smiled back before whirling in the opposite direction and escaping from the voices that were hearable all around her. She didn't look back.

* * *

 _ **1 hour before…**_

Kuki was weak. Only after walking for two hours straight forward she had taken a break to try to medicate her injury, but she soon discovered she couldn't do a single thing apart from making it worse: it was simply too much painful to do something on it herself.

Her radio was the only thing she currently kept in her hands. It was also the only concrete object that gave her hope. She couldn't call for help, but Nigel with his advanced radio could, and if she managed to contact him, there would have been a possibility of salvation, and they would even have been able to go back and save Wally, Abby and Hoagie. Because there was no way she was admitting they were no more in the living world.

But she had been calling his frequency for so long, her fingers were now more similar to icy stalagmites, frozen up by the low temperature. The snowstorm was at that moment at its peak, and she couldn't see farther than one meter. She could barely maintain the device on her hands.

It was just for pure luck that the little thing suddenly began beeping the tone for an incoming call. Immediately the girl focused on the new event, thus falling to the ground in the process, and frantically tried to press the answer button with her senseless fingers.

 _Fzzz…_ the radio buzzed, _fzzz…_

"fzzz…. fzki? Kuki? Are youfzzz… right?"

"Nigel!" Kuki cried, "Where are you? Something horrible has happened! We need to call for help!"

"Kuki, where are you? Are you injured?" Nigel's voice asked, genuinely worried.

"There's no time for that! We need to help Abby and Wally! They're in… in trouble!" she was trying her best not to break down right there. She had to keep cool.

"Kuki, calm down," another voice said. It was Hoagie: "We need to know where you are now. We've been captured but thank goodness they do not consider us prisoners of war, so they didn't search us and actually helped us with our injuries. We're calling moonbase now, but if you don't tell us where you are, we cannot send you help. You have to trust us, all right?"

"I… I don't know… I just… walked away for an hour or so… I don't know! I don't… oh no, you're not gonna find-!"

"Kuki! Do not panic!" Nigel voice's bellowed, "You're only endangering yourself that way! Stop whatever you're doing, find somewhere safe, and wait. I swear that I'll find you and bring you, Abby and Wallabee out of this damn place, whatever the cost! Understood?"

The tears on Kuki's cheeks were slowly forming an ice cover over her skin. But the girl didn't mind. She smiled. They were going to make it. They were all going to be all right.

"I'll keep this call open while I contact moonbase: do not leave us, Kuki. Numbuh Two, it's your turn to-…"

" _What are you children doing?"_

That wasn't the voice of neither Nigel of Hoagie. It was foreign… the voice of an adult. A soldier.

Kuki's breath gained in speed as much as her heartbeat.

"We're just playing, you know…" Hoagie right away answered, trying to sound convincing. But the soldier didn't buy it.

"Give me that thing!" he uttered. _No, no, no, no!_ Kuki thought as she grabbed the radio with her covered hands and stuck the thing on her ears. She heard Nigel and Hoagie as they tried to stop the soldier from stealing their long-range communicator. The adult swore more than one ominous word during the attack, but Kuki couldn't care. They had to stop him! They had to call moonbase, or-

She heard the sound of something colliding with a hard surface. Then, the transmission went static.

At first, Kuki did not move. She wanted to believe it was just an hallucination.

 _Fzzz…._

 _Fzzz…._

It wasn't an hallucination. It was real.

She was alone.

Wallabee was gone. Abigail had probably followed him. Nigel and Hoagie were in a critical situation. Moonbase wasn't going to send someone to go look for them for an entire day.

She was alone.

 _Alone._

Something broke apart inside the ten years old girl's soul. She stood up and jerked her heard upwards, ignoring the pain and the violent wind alike.

Then she screamed.

She screamed with all her might.

She screamed her sorrow out. She shrieked all the anguish she had accumulated until that single moment.

She continued in doing so as she let herself fall back on the snowy ground, where a stain of crimson red appeared and started to enlarge itself. Her scream slowly lost in strength, turning into a cry, a wheeze, and finally a series of sobs.

There she lied for two minutes. She wasn't thinking. She wasn't really feeling at all. All she was doing was crying.

Then, something made her move. She stood up, but it was mechanic, like it wasn't really her moving her legs. She gritted her teeth as she put an hand over the open wound, in a pitiful attempt to slow down the bleeding.

Her face was half wet from tears, half frozen up in ice. Her eyes were blank.

She resumed her path.

* * *

 _ **Present.**_

A lone tear ran down the pallid cheek of the lone girl. For just a single moment, Kuki remembered. And that single moment hurt her more than the last hours of walking in the blizzard without a proper cover, with the wound on her chest getting worse and worse.

A single, but meaningful sob was let away from her mouth. The lone tear left her face and midway from the ground turned into solid ice, before finally touching the open ground below her and breaking itself into dozens of tiny fragments.

She contemplated what remained of her tear for some seconds, just the time needed to register the event. Ignoring the protests from her body, she stood up.

Then, she moved forward.

 **END**

* * *

 _Author's Note: rewritten this since I felt the original note was not clear in its message. Well, I do know that this fanfiction is not going to be liked that much. It might be a combination of the theme, the way I portrayed the characters and what I threw them into, and maybe the fact I could have done better._

 _This story was written for one, precise reason. You see, as I've stated in the opening, 'The Innocence of a Kid' is part of a series of one-shots, and these stories have in common the theme: war. But this one is the only fanfic that deals with the concrete consequences of a war: the other three fanfictions have characters debate on war and its implications, hence the Spiritual genre, while in this one we read about what a war could really do to its first-hand victims, hence the Angst genre. I felt I needed to deal with this obvious aspect of the theme and that I couldn't discuss it without **showing** it. KND was the one fandom I believed was the best choice for this goal, for it granted me the ability to write a plot that could at least interest the reader until the end. I think that what I managed to write is… striking, for lack of a better word. At least, that what I hope I've accomplished. If you've read the other stories, you can consider this one the climax of the series._


End file.
